Terraforming

[Chaos]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I´d like you to share your thoughts on the topic if terraforming. On the off-chance that you haven´t heard that term before, it refers to any efforts aimed at making a planet more like Earth - specifically, improving its habitability by Earth life-forms, especially humans.

As far as I can tell, there are several factors that influence the habitability of planets:

1) gravity

Earth lifeforms are "optimized" for 1 g; much more or less will feel uncomfortable, at best, or produce all kinds of health problems and accidents at worst.

2) surface temperature

Fairly self-explanatory, I guess

3) temperature change during day/night cycle

The Sahara desert has an average temperature of about 15°C (55°F), which sounds fairly inviting until you realize that´s 50°C by day and -20°C by night...

4) temperature change during seasonal cycle

See above, too. A world that has Saharan climate during summer and Antarctic climate during winter is NOT my idea of a nice place to live.

5) length of planetary day

That´s probably not that much of a problem, but I included it anyway.

6) length of planetary year

This will mostly be a problem for "wild" animal and plant life. can wild animal survive a 40 months long winter live they do a 4 months long winter? Can plants grow during a 6 week warm season instead of a 6 month warm season?

7) atmospheric pressure

Too little - bad. Too much - bad. A habitable planet needs an atmospheric pressure with certain parameters at least at some point in its altitude range.

8) atmospheric composition

Oxygen is necessary for Earth life forms - I think a minimum of 13% for humans (our atmosphere has 20%, I think); also there are some things you do NOT want in your atmosphere - radioactives, for example.

9) stellar radiation

Getting too much UV or similar radiation is a VERY bad thing.

10) stellar activity (flares, sunspot cycles etc.)

Do YOU want to live on a planet that gets fried every few years?

11) climate (if applicable)

I guess something like the global sand storms on Mars would diminish a world´s attractiveness for colonization somewhat. Earth´s global weather patterns aren´t exactly what I would call "nice" all the time, either, but I guess you´ll have to settle for less than perfect.

12) tectonic and volcanic activity

Frequent severe earthquakes probably don´t make a planet uninhabitable, but the necessity of earthquake-proof construction, as well as the damage that is going to happen nonetheless, would pose a problem. Frequent volcanic eruptions also cause damage, and if they exceed a certain level, could release critical amounts of chemicals (sulphuric gases and such) into the atmosphere.


I am sure there is something I have overlooked so far. Forgive if this post is of somewhat poor quality, but it´s after midnight here and I wanted to post this before I forgot it. I am going to expand on this later.

Meanwhile, if any of you would like to add their two cents, feel free to do so. Especially on what to do to change these critical parameters...

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Sure, I'll bite.

Originally posted by Chaos:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

1) gravity

There's not a lot you can do about gravity terraforming-wise with the technology that will be available in most Traveller campaigns. If you're talking about a culture that's capable of planetary and stellar scale engineering tasks it might be a different story, but in the Traveller 'verse you're probably stuck with what you have. If the world's gravity is only slightly lower of higher than Earth's, it might be possible to attack it from the other direction by genetically engineering your colonists and their animals to be adapted to it.

2) surface temperature

Fairly self-explanatory, I guess

Also one of the easier things to deal with. You can have orbiting mirrors to increase insolation, introduction of atmosphere gasses such as CFCs to increase heat retention on the surface, and a number of other things to adjust temperature upwards. Downward is harder, and would probably entail long-term work to either reduce insolation with a solar shade or precipitate heat-retaining chemicals out of the planet's atmosphere, unless you tried some real exotic solutions like radiator fins suspended in the atmosphere a la space elevators.

3) temperature change during day/night cycle

I'm not sure what factors cause this, so I'm not entirely sure how to prevent it.

4) temperature change during seasonal cycle

5) length of planetary day

6) length of planetary year

These are functions of the planet's axial tilt, rotation speed, and orbital velocity around its primary. Again, not things that you're likely to be able to change in the Traveller setting.

7) atmospheric pressure

Too little- drop comets of the right composition onto the planet and let their volatiles become atmospheric gas. Repeat until the atmosphere is at the desired pressure. Alternately, you could use some classic hard-sf atmosphere processors, although to be more efficient than comet dropping this supposes that the gas you need is already on planet, just trapped in large underground deposits.

Too much- Make the excess gas precipitate into liquid form by lowering planetary temperature as discussed above. Theoretically, you could also try to vacuum up atmosphere and discard it into space, but this is probably impractical in the Traveller setting due to the sheer amount of material that would have to be moved.

8) atmospheric composition

Dropping comets would probably be the best solution for introducing atmospheric chemicals in bulk, more practical than the giant hardtech atmospheric processors so beloved of scifi. Another possible solution would be engineered bacteria that would metabolically produce the desired compounds, although they'd have to be allowed to proliferate virtually unchecked in order to get the kind of production you'd need. The changing environment would induce enormous selective pressure on them, and the results would be hard to predict.

9) stellar radiation

As long as you're redoing the atmosphere, putting a decent amount of ozone up there isn't that hard.

10) stellar activity (flares, sunspot cycles etc.)

Is there any way to change this?

11) climate (if applicable)

Once your atmosphere has been redone, you're going to see climate patterns completely shift. What you do about them depends on what they are, but you might be able to (for example) alter the flow of rivers and the placement of aquifers in order to make changes in rainfall patterns.

As for the last point, IIRC tectonic and volcanic activity are mostly a function of age and how the planet is put together, so it's unlikely that terraforming using Traveller-era tech will be able to do much about those factors.

 

[archhealer]

In regards to temperature changes for night/day cycles:

Water, water, water!!!!

The more water there is, both in liquid form and in the atmosphere, the less temperature variation there will be. Water has a very high specific heat and acts as a sink for thermal energy, thus stabilizing the surrounding Temperature (See "The lake effect" of upstate NY).

Gravity: Well, gravitic plating is common in Traveler, so why couldn't massive gravity generators be set up? Also, planetary spin has some influence on this; the faster the planet spins, the less gravity will effectively pull on things, at least nearer the equator (I don't THINK that would affect things near the poles... I could be wrong.)

Orbit, Spin, Tilt:
We have the tech to build starships BIGGER than planets. Seriously, it's there. Soo... Big drives, strap them to the planet, move the damn thing to where you want it, spin it as fast as you want it, and adjust the tilt. Uses a lot of maneuver drive fuel, and requires MASSIVE drives, but it can be done, according to the design sequence.

 

[robject]

I'm a big fan of redirecting comets to dry worlds for water and gases, considering that with enough patience and resources you can find plenty of water in a solar system.

 

[hirch duckfinder]

a bit off topic but my favourite adventure to run for new players is "snowfall" by joe webb available from freelance traveller. lots of terraforming in that! anyone else seen it?

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
In regards to temperature changes for night/day cycles:

Water, water, water!!!!

The more water there is, both in liquid form and in the atmosphere, the less temperature variation there will be. Water has a very high specific heat and acts as a sink for thermal energy, thus stabilizing the surrounding Temperature (See "The lake effect" of upstate NY).

Good call. I remember reading something like that in discussions of irrigating deserts. Something else to generate from ice asteroids, maybe? (Yes, I like dropping rocks- who doesn't?)

Gravity: Well, gravitic plating is common in Traveler, so why couldn't massive gravity generators be set up? Also, planetary spin has some influence on this; the faster the planet spins, the less gravity will effectively pull on things, at least nearer the equator (I don't THINK that would affect things near the poles... I could be wrong.)

Orbit, Spin, Tilt:
We have the tech to build starships BIGGER than planets. Seriously, it's there. Soo... Big drives, strap them to the planet, move the damn thing to where you want it, spin it as fast as you want it, and adjust the tilt. Uses a lot of maneuver drive fuel, and requires MASSIVE drives, but it can be done, according to the design sequence.

Both of these are valid points, but if you're going to the trouble of building ships bigger than planets, why not just make living space on those? In other words, at some point the cost of terraforming is going to exceed the value of having another planet around. It's going to be a high point, because planets are valuable (and ones with key resources or astrographic locations will be more so), but plating the entire planet with grav generators or actually moving its orbit is probably Right Out if your name isn't Grandfather.

Random tangent: Who is the most likely suspect to be funding terraforming projects in the 3I? The Navy, when they need a depot planet in the right place? Megacorporations who want a habitable planet that nobody else has a claim on? Ambitious marqiuses? (Terraforming an adjacent world to yours and making the Imperium one of 11,001 worlds is probably a good way to get your family bumped up to count.)

 

[LordVince]

Archhealer brigs up a good point -- if indirectly.

Technological Ability is a major deciding factor in any Terraforming Project -- because, the higher your tech, the more options you'll have.

At Tech-8, your ONLY option might be to drop a big comet on the planet, and cross your fingers you don't toss enough dust into the air to cause a "Nuclear Winter" effect. But, at Tech-14, that same 5-kilometer wide comet could be gently brought down from orbit by using a half-dozen Cruisers as "tugboats". The 3I's Technology has MASTERED Gravity, remember!

Gravtanks, GravHarnesses, Gravitic Thrusters, Repulsers, Grav-Propelled Battlesuits -- what CAN'T the 3I's Grav Technology do?

At Tech-8 you might seed a planet with algae, and other atmosphere converting plants -- then wait for a Century for results. At Tech-14 you bio-engineer a moss that spreads like wildfire, absorbs your unwanted atmospheric elements and then produces prodigious amounts of oxygen AND water as waste products, and is completely harmless to Man -- converting billions of tons of unbreathable gasses into AIR in only a Decade.

And, as mentioned, those beloved-of-Sci-Fi, massive Air Proccessor Factories...those are probably Tech-11 ^_^

So, I think it might be appropriate to start by creating a guideline of Technology that CAN perform the Terraforming operations, and codify them from Impossible to Easy.

Could a Tech-5 Civilization Terraform a nearby Planet? By the definition given for Tech-5, Could they do it? How about Tech-6? Tech-7? At what Tech Level does the ability to Terraform BEGIN? At THAT Tech Level it would be "Difficult"; requiring billions of credits, and many, many years of operations.

And then consider the other end of the spectrum. What's the BEST Tech the 3I can put in the field, in significant amounts? The Navy is, supposedly, running around with Tech-14 ships (though I've never encountered one), so what would the best "Civilian" Tech be? 14? 15?

Let's say 14, for this discussion. How "easy" would you say it is for a Tech-14 Megacorporation (or a Planetary Government; a big organization with lots of resources), how easy is it for a Tech-14 Organization to Terraform a planet? Never mind the specifics of HOW, for the moment, just consider...how difficult do you think it SHOULD be for a Tech-14 organization to Terraform a Planet?

Should it be "Earth In A Bottle, just add water"?

Or, "Piece of cake! Earth-like environments in a Handful of years"?

Or "In a Couple of Decades this will be Earth-like"?

Or will it still be "We plant the seeds today, that we may take off our helmets in 200 years"?

 

[archhealer]

One note, about the world-sized ship:

I wasn't saying they should build ships the size of planet. I'm saying, they could just build the DRIVE for a ship the size of a planet, strap it to the planet in question, and move the whole damn planet where they want it. MUCH cheaper than building the whole ship.

Incidently, IMTU, there is a world-ship roughly the size of a size8 planet, and it has the added advantage that much of it's interior space is available for living space/infrastructure, allowing in fact a much larger pop than an average size 8 planet. Main problem is, it takes a good chunk of a gas giant to fuel it for a single jump. Heh. It pretty much moves into a system, strips it of resources in relatively short order, and moves on.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Now, Arch, just give it Virus, and it becomes the "Doomsday Machine" (ST:TOS).

 

[archhealer]

Too true! Mmm.... Doomsday. Tastes like Doom, just like Mom used to make.

 

[jappel]

For a really good treatment of terraforming, I heartily endorse Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars", "Green Mars" and "Blue Mars". From windmills that power heater coils scattered across the surface to nuclear melting of the polar permafrost to orbiting solletas, it's in there. Lots of good inspiration, and a damn fine series of books (at least one is a Hugo winner, if memory serves).

- John

 

[parmasson]

“Never mind the specifics of HOW, for the moment, just consider...how difficult do you think it SHOULD be for a Tech-14 organization to Terraform a Planet?”

Very hard, even at higher tech levels. Look at the number of worlds in the 3I that are trace atmosphere or vacc worlds. It would take hundreds of years to make a change in a global ecosystem and a hell of a lot of money and political willpower. Easier to build a dome over the good parts and ship out the minerals you want.

Perhaps when you hit Tech 18+ the process becomes easier but a habitable planet has lots of factors beyond atmosphere that need to be addressed.

 

[far-trader]

I think it could range from trivially easy to impossible, depending on starting conditions.

One thing high tech in Traveller gives us is stupidly cheap and easy energy and space travel. This would make some worlds dead easy to terraform.

But I tend to look at the evidence the other way around. Look at all the near terrestrial worlds of the OTU. I imagine most of them are that way because of intervention and at least marginal terraforming. Mostly for the other big factor in any terraforming project, patience. It can take a long time and that is another thing the OTU has in spades.

 

[archhealer]

What about planets that have a good atmosphere and water, but not life? How hard is it to ship in soil, seeds, and animals? How long does it take before they sorta 'go native' and develope an actual ecosystem? WHY ARE THERE BREATHABLE atmospheres when there's no life?

 

[mike wightman]

I agree with what Dan said above about the many worlds of the third Imperium being the result of terraforming projects in the past - not the Ancient past, mind you

In the Imperium boardgame, which is set during the conflict between the Vilani Imperium and the Terran Confederation (2100AD-2300AD aprox.), both sides could terraform worlds to make them more Earth-like over 50 game turns - 100 years.

The original Spinward Marches supplement for CT mentions an ongoing terraforming operation.

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
What about planets that have a good atmosphere and water, but not life? How hard is it to ship in soil, seeds, and animals? How long does it take before they sorta 'go native' and develope an actual ecosystem? WHY ARE THERE BREATHABLE atmospheres when there's no life?

The Terran Confederation (probably around TL9 or TL10) did this all the time. Search for the references to the Solomani corporation GenAssist.

GenAssist was responsible for the uplift and genetic engineering of several Earth creatures, including baboons, killer whales and bottlenose dolphins. There is canon material that states that these 3 animals were uplifted to sophonts (yes, they became full sapients, with the ability to read, write, use email, and they can even crew starships).

These uplifted species were then seeded to the many worlds that Terrans colonized.

GenAssist also geneered many Earth animals that were not made sophonts, BUT they were geneered so that they would adapt easily to the many worlds that the Terrans colonized and inhabited.

These geneering projects were begun during the early days of the Terran Diaspora.... probably before the defeat of the Vilani Imperium. What was this? Tech level 9 or 10?

GenAssist still still exists even at the time of Emperor Strephon (circa 1107). GenAssist is cited as a large corporation inside the Solomani Confederation. However GenAssist never quite reached megacorporation status.

 

[Golan2072]

IMTU terraformation is common, but is usually partial unless the world is a good candidate for terraformation (such as Mars, which is almost completely terraformed IMTU). Some worlds are simply not worth the cost of their terraformation (if it is possible at all - MTU is TL12 after all); Luna, for example, and similar airless small worlds are left as they are, and colonized using domes and/or underground tunneling (digging tunnels is almost completely robotic, mind you, and quite cheap in TL12). Worlds with serious corrosive or insidious atmosphere aren't worth the terraformation bother, either - they are mostly colonized underground. Marginal worlds usually go partial terraformation, usually some process to get rid of the more problematic components of the atmosphere and/or to introduce radiation-absorbing gasses to the atmosphere (such as ozone and several synthetic compounds) to get to reasonable levels of surface radiation.

Good Candidates are worlds such as Mars of the pre-life Earth. Sure, complete terraformation takes time; the first phase usually consists of moving comets into collision course with the target world (how big would the comets need to be? how big a spacecraft is needed to move them?) and into low "atmospheric braking" trajectories that garauntee (sp?) minimal surface impact and maximum addition of gasses to the atmosphere; this phase takes between ten to a hundred years (depending on the world; Mars needed 70 years of constant bombradment). The next phase is far more complex, and involves deep boreholes into the planet's crust (to release heat into the atmosphere), atmospheric and/or hydrospheric processing factories (either chewing up rock and/or ice and spewing needed gasses, or chemically processing parts of the atmosphere), and the initial seeding of single-cell and multi-cell fungal and plant life (algae and bacteria mostly); this takes a few more decades, but at the end of this phase the atmosphere is breathable or near-breathable (no space suit needed, usually a compressor and/or filter and/or warm clothes needed). The third and last phase, which is the longest, involves planetary-scale engineering of the world's biosphere which IMTU has only been done on Mars, and even there partially.

So expect alot of worlds that look closer to Acheron (from Aliens) than to Earth, and plenty more which are lifeless. There are also natural Earthlikes, ofcourse, but they all have their own biospheres which have to be taken into account when colonizing these worlds.

 

[Dragoner]

Here is a technique I am thinking about for terraforming waterworlds in particular.

A large floating circular island base lays out a large osmotic mat, to filter down to mostly H2O which then they freeze into chunks with large compressors. These chunks are of between 1000 and 5000 dTon size which are grappled by a Jump Ship (Supp 9) and taken to other worlds for terraforming there. The idea is to reduce the hydrographics from an A to a 7 (mostly on size 8 worlds) and to increase hydrographic or introduce atmosphere on other close to size 8 worlds (ie 7,8,9), thus the terraforming becomes a two for one situation. I guess the real work is figure out: how much volume of water needs to be taken, by how many ships, for how long.

Also I could see processor plants, cracking water for oxygen to increase atmospheric density and then tanking the liquid hydrogen for fuel.

 

[atpollard]

Terraforming is difficult. There are many factors not easily changed.

For example, terraforming Mars runs into the unavoidable fact that the planet is simply not massive enough to retain a substantial atmosphere. Increasing the mass and size of a planet is a tall order, with the only alternatives being a constant importation of new atmosphere to replace the loss, or a magic pseudo gravity on a planetary scale.

Even if the world is large enough to retain an atmosphere, does it have a magnetic field? The Earth’s magnetic field is generated by a liquid, spinning core. Any thoughts on how to liquefy and spin the core of a solid cold rock the size of a planet? Without a magnetosphere, solar winds will blow away the lighter atmospheric gasses and radiation could remain a problem for life. Anyone for creating and living on a Venus?

Hydrographics seems to be one of the few easy ‘flaws’ to terraform, and if the other conditions exist (gravity to retain an atmosphere and a magnetosphere to protect it) then water will probably be present.

Moving a world to another orbit is a more interesting terraforming option. Mars’ thin atmosphere near the inner habitable zone and Venus’ greenhouse atmosphere near outer habitable zone and SOL gets close to perhaps 3 habitable worlds.

[EDIT: WOW, this is a 2005 topic ressurection.]

 

[Dragoner]

I did a search and found a topic on terraforming, even if it is 2005, I didn't think there needed to be another new topic for my post.

Magnetosphere is an interesting topic, I wonder if there are artificial ways to simulate one? The issue of gravity is why I stick to size 7,8,9; interesting to think about is if one has a size 9 waterworld, if one removed a substatial amount of water, it may reduce the size by one and make for example, a thin atmosphere standard. The 1 gravity and a breatheable atmosphere are of primary importance for terraforming, this makes the world very useable. At the level of technology, it does seem that there would be various efforts to terraform which seem difficult now, but would be easier in the future. Habitability seems of huge impotance, even on dome cities the 1G grav plates make it all possible, too light of gravity and you are stuck there as if you went to a higher G world, you would die of an instant heart attack.